Piazza Tomasso Spaghetti Sauce: A Montreal Classic

Published July 1, 2026

I grew up on Piazza Tomasso spaghetti sauce. It was my gold standard. Purists will certainly disagree, but it was my first taste of a restaurant’s sauce, and once both the restaurant and the frozen version disappeared, I spent years without it.

This spring, that changed. Below is the story of how I found my way back to that flavor, the recipe I landed on, and every change I made to get it closer to the sauce I remember.

How I Found the Sauce Again

For years, people traded attempts at this sauce online, and none of them came close. Then, renowned cookbook author Marcy Goldman announced she had finally cracked it, tracing the flavor to a single secret ingredient: a Montreal-made spice blend called El Ma-Mia. Within a week of reading her post, I tracked down the blend, bought a jar, and could not wait to see what would happen.

I followed her recipe exactly and served it to one of my sons and my wife. We were not disappointed. That distinctive Piazza Tomasso taste was there. But it was not quite the sauce I remembered, so a few days later I went back to the pot and started adjusting. If you want the full story of the restaurant itself, the breadsticks, the car service, Magic Tom Auburn, it lives in my companion piece, Piazza Tomasso: Memories of a Montreal Institution.

Marcy Goldman’s Original Piazza Tomasso Spaghetti Sauce vs. My Version

Three changes did most of the work. I took out the heat, cut the garlic, and chased the sweetness I remembered from childhood. Here is how the two recipes line up on the details that matter.

The Piazza Tomasso Spaghetti Sauce Recipe

Here is the version I landed on. Print it, scale it for a crowd, and freeze what you do not use. It reheats beautifully.

Jon Simon

Piazza Tomasso Spaghetti Sauce

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A lost recipe from a defunct Montreal dining institution has been recreated.

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Prep Time 15 minutes mins

Cook Time 1 hour hr 30 minutes mins

Total Time 1 hour hr 45 minutes mins

Ingredients

  

1x2x3x?

• ¼ cup Olive Oil
• 2 cloves garlic crushed
• 2 tbsp chopped Italian parsley
• 1 pound lean ground beef
• 4 oz mild Italian Sausage
• 1 medium onion chopped
• 1 can  28 ounces (796 ml)  Crushed Plum Tomatoes
• ¼ tsp thyme
• ¼ tsp oregano
• ¼ tsp onion powder
• ½ tsp salt
• ¼ tsp crushed black pepper
• 2.5 tbsp El Ma-Mia Lasagna Spices
• ½ cup Ketchup
• 4 tbsp tomato paste
• ½ tsp fresh lemon juice
• 1 ⅓ cup water
• 1 tbsp cornstarch

Equipment

• 1 5-quart pot or 6 quartt Instant Pot
• 1 Chef’s knife
• 1 cutting board
• 1 Wooden spoon
• 1 OXO Good Grips Ground Meat Chopper

Method

 

1. In a 5-quart pot, heat the olive oil on low and add in the chopped onions, and cook until translucent (increase heat if required). I used my Instant Pot.
2. After 5 minutes, when the onions begin to get translucent, stir in the parsley
   
3. Add the ground beef and sausage (casing removed), breaking up with a large spoon. (I use an OXO Good Grips Ground Meat Chopper for best results)
   
4. Once the sausage and ground beef are fully integrated with the onions and all the pink color is gone, stir in the crushed tomatoes, tomato paste, thyme, oregano, onion powder, and El Ma-Mia Lasagna Spices, salt, black pepper, ketchup, and lemon juice.
5. Simmer for 15-20 minutes on low heat.
6. In a 2-cup measuring cup, add the water and corn starch to create a slurry
7. Add the slurry to the sauce and stir.
8. Keep simmering on very low heat for another 30 minutes
9. Serve over spaghetti
   

Nutrition

Serving: 10servingsCalories: 137kcalCarbohydrates: 7gProtein: 11gFat: 8gSaturated Fat: 2gPolyunsaturated Fat: 1gMonounsaturated Fat: 5gTrans Fat: 0.2gCholesterol: 29mgSodium: 218mgPotassium: 281mgFiber: 1gSugar: 4gVitamin A: 163IUVitamin C: 3mgCalcium: 15mgIron: 1mg

Notes

This is my variation on Marcy Goldman’s recreation of the famous Piazza Tomasso Meat Spaghetti sauce. Feel free to add garlic and/or pepper flakes, but in my memory bank, they weren’t in the original. Let me know how this recipe turned out for you and what changes you would suggest.

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Recreation Notes

A few things I learned in the pot, in case you want to steer your own batch closer to the original. First, the chili peppers. Marcy’s recipe includes them, but the Piazza Tomasso sauce in my memory carried no heat at all, so I dropped them and the cayenne entirely. Add a pinch back if your memory says otherwise.

Second, the garlic. I halved it to two cloves. The original never read as garlicky to me, more round and savory than sharp. Third, the sweetness. This was the missing piece. A half cup of ketchup brought back that gentle, almost nostalgic sweetness I remembered, and it did more for the flavor than the two teaspoons of sugar in the original.

I used the saute function on my Instant Pot to soften the onions and brown the meat before the long simmer, purely for convenience. A heavy pot on the stovetop does the same job. One honest note on texture: this is a much meatier sauce than the one I grew up on. I like it that way, but if you are chasing the restaurant exactly, know that mine runs about twice as meaty as the dining-room version and three times or more as meaty as the frozen sauce that came later. So, on that count, it is not 100 percent there, but in terms of flavor, it is so, so close, and I will keep evolving it.

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Final Thoughts

This is not a finished recipe so much as a work in progress, and that feels right for a sauce I have been chasing for nearly sixty years. Please try my version and tell me how it matches your own memory of Piazza Tomasso, and what you changed to get it closer to the original. That is how these lost recipes come back.

Source Notes